I have a 2001 Dodge Caravan with 3.3l 6cyl engine. It has about 99,200 miles on it and I'm the third owner as far as I know and only had it for about 4 months. I have a great mechanic who looked at the car before i bought it and said it's in great condition. I have different issues whether or not they're serious or not i don't know and if i'm just making big deals out of nothing i don't know either. But everytime i call him or come to him he checks it and says everything is fine. Sometimes the problems i describe don't appear to him when i go to him.... He's already sick of me calling him & asking questions.... Here are some of the problems i have/had...

1). Brakes thudding not all the time and once... the car pulled right cause of it. Brakes are in great condition according to Mechanic possibly ABS there is some rust on axel... car was not used for about 1.5 yrs before i bought it.

2.) Steering wheel making a sirenish like sound sometimes... power steering liquid is full.

3.) Car switched from Drive to Neutral by itself while i was on stop... shifter cable is fine.

4.) When i drive sometimes it doesn't feel like the car is going as fast as it feel like it's going... I live in NYC and the weather here has been windy the past few days so i don't know if wind has an effect on how the car drives....

Once again i'm 19 and don't know a lot about cars... I might not have any problems at all i don't know... Just tell me if i should worry or not and what would a problem with a transmission be like or if anything is wrong with my steering wheel....

 

If it gets worse, then worry about it. Tough to find some of that intermittent stuff. Steering noise is pretty common on these vans. If the fluid is full, could have a screen getting dirty in the fluid reservoir. Never heard of a shifting issue like that.

 

What's the condition of the Tires? that can cause ur car to Pull and Drive like crap. I never heard of the Shifter issue either, sounds even more weird when you say it only does it on stop.
Maybe a New Set of Good tires will solve ur problems.

Yeah, Power steering noise, you probably need a new P/S bottle, cost like $20 from the dealership.

 

Yup, not much to get your teeth into here but all warrant monitoring. For the speed differential issue you could try sticking the speedo on 60 mph for 60 seconds between highway mile markers. Start the clock at a marker, maintain 60 mph as best you can, stop the clock as you pass the next marker. If the clock says 60 seconds, the speedo is spot on. If it's higher or lower the speedo is off. Do it several times to verify. Best to have a buddy run the clock while you maintain that 60mph.

 

I have brand new tires... put them on when i bought the car in the beginning of November '10

It only happened like two times... and those times were like 2-3 weeks apart... i believe i was on stop.... maybe not...

Is the bottle necessary? Is it dangerous if i don't change it?

 

I'm very confused by all of that lol

 

Not really, U can wait until it goes REAL bad b4 u replace the bottle.

As for the Speedo, just go buy or Borrow a GPS, and match the Car's speedo with the GPS's Speedo.

 

Ok. I have a gps... i'll try that! Thanks!

 

Makes perfect sense to me. He's trying to answer #4 about speed. even though I know what you mean, the answer he gives isn't what your question is about.

Because you don't know much about cars, your description of the problems are confusing to people that are knowledgeable about cars.

 

As for the Car pulls to the Right, I trust ur mechanic on this one if he say the brake is fine, and not dragging, you should be fine.
To verify the Tire pull, Swap the left and right front tire, see if that do anything.
New tires can develop a Pull too, hence Tire rotation every other oil change is recommended
These are pretty good Minivan, just take care of it.